This reminds me of a couple articles I read about Costco. Apparently, Costco pays its employees quite a bit more than other discount stores, with those who've been there 2-3 years making around $40K with pretty decent benefits.
The first article claimed that some investors were unhappy about this, because Costco's profits weren't quite as high as their competitors'.
But the second claimed that Costco is one of the companies that is holding its own against Walmart, because customers like the fact that the employees are happy and helpful, due to the fact that they're getting treated well.
Back in the dot-com days, the startup I worked for designated an entire 40Gb disk for storing MP3's that the employees created from CD's. It was a pretty extensive collection.
True, but it's not just because software is intangible. Most of us value the plumber's service, because the service works. If you pay a plumber $100 to fix your toilet, it's likely that it will work fine for months, if not for years.
I can't say the same for MS's software. And with computers everywhere now, there's a fairly common perception among people that the service MS provides isn't very reliable, especially now that they can compare it with free software.
I've no antipathy for OpenStep, just as I have no antipathy towards HURD (which, for all I know, might be a far more advanced OS than Linux). What I do know is that Linux was there for me when I wanted to have a Unix-like work-station. And KDE provided a completely useable desktop even before its 1.0 release.
I still use WindowMaker on my slower home machine. But other than the applets that came with it, I haven't seen anything from OpenStep.
You're forgetting something: GEM. It was DRI's 'windowing system', and was far better than Windows at the time. It also came with several sample applications (some of which may have cost extra), such as GEMDraw and GEMPaint. Additionally, Ventura Publisher was a GEM app.
In addition, GEM was used as the GUI for the AtariST, and there were numerous applications for it on that platform.
DRI was not clueless about real users' needs, as you imply, and they were working on additional applications both for GEM and for Windows. They just couldn't compete with the MS monopoly.
Yes, and I still have my GEM developers toolkit for the IBM PC. I had originally learned GEM for an AtariST application ("Habawriter"). It only took a day to port the whole program to the PC, despite it being a different architecture and OS.
In other words, a multi-platform GUI existed 20 years ago.
1980-2010: Software engineer 2010-2013: Law school (job was outsourced to India). 2014-2030: Lawyer 2030-present: Software engineer (India is outsourcing to US)
Even my in-laws, who are life-long Republicans who campaigned for Goldwater and Nixon, can't stand Bush.
My impression is that the people who like him are mostly the religious nuts who will vote for anyone who claims to be anti-abortion. Pretty scary when you have so many people who think they have god on their side.
What I really mean is that you should work on a project of your own, possibly with a friend, so that you keep your skills up-to-date. Then you can put something on your resume without lying, and you'll have something to talk about at interviews.
True. I read about how Captain Cook, when his ship was badly damaged off Australia, managed to beach the craft so that his crew could rebuild the bottom of the hull.
They are rigged against the poor and middle class, because wage earners have no control over what is considered income: It's their wages.
A rich CEO, on the other hand, can jet around the world, stay in the best hotels, eat in the finest restaurants, and not consider those expenses, paid by the company, as income.
The reason we don't make a big deal out of the Linux exploits is that most of us have never seen any harm from them. Yet Windows, throughout its life, has been a constant hassle.
Hmm... Our Portland house has 'passive heating' of a kind, in that we have large, unobstructed south-facing windows. The result is that we don't have to heat much in winter (except for the rare times when it's snowing).
That's a good point about the "win-usb". But I think it has less chance of succeeding than win-modems. The latter could always be sold cheaper than 'real' modems because they required less hardware. But MS's drm'd usb will require more hardware, so it's likely to be more expensive.
That means the cheapskate (like me) will buy an old-style usb, then scream to anyone who will listen about how my Windows machine won't work with it, and that the only response from MS was to buy a more expensive version.
The general idea is that an 'exempt' employee is doing mostly mental work, so the number of hours worked doesn't need to be kept track of like, say, a policeman. In theory, a software engineer will work extra hours when necessary, but will go home early if he managed to get his work done.
Slashdot Mirror
I already have one. It's called a Persian.
This reminds me of a couple articles I read about Costco. Apparently, Costco pays its employees quite a bit more than other discount stores, with those who've been there 2-3 years making around $40K with pretty decent benefits.
The first article claimed that some investors were unhappy about this, because Costco's profits weren't quite as high as their competitors'.
But the second claimed that Costco is one of the companies that is holding its own against Walmart, because customers like the fact that the employees are happy and helpful, due to the fact that they're getting treated well.
Back in the dot-com days, the startup I worked for designated an entire 40Gb disk for storing MP3's that the employees created from CD's. It was a pretty extensive collection.
True, but it's not just because software is intangible. Most of us value the plumber's service, because the service works. If you pay a plumber $100 to fix your toilet, it's likely that it will work fine for months, if not for years.
I can't say the same for MS's software. And with computers everywhere now, there's a fairly common perception among people that the service MS provides isn't very reliable, especially now that they can compare it with free software.
I've no antipathy for OpenStep, just as I have no antipathy towards HURD (which, for all I know, might be a far more advanced OS than Linux). What I do know is that Linux was there for me when I wanted to have a Unix-like work-station. And KDE provided a completely useable desktop even before its 1.0 release.
I still use WindowMaker on my slower home machine. But other than the applets that came with it, I haven't seen anything from OpenStep.
You're forgetting something: GEM. It was DRI's 'windowing system', and was far better than Windows at the time. It also came with several sample applications (some of which may have cost extra), such as GEMDraw and GEMPaint. Additionally, Ventura Publisher was a GEM app.
In addition, GEM was used as the GUI for the AtariST, and there were numerous applications for it on that platform.
DRI was not clueless about real users' needs, as you imply, and they were working on additional applications both for GEM and for Windows. They just couldn't compete with the MS monopoly.
Yes, and I still have my GEM developers toolkit for the IBM PC. I had originally learned GEM for an AtariST application ("Habawriter"). It only took a day to port the whole program to the PC, despite it being a different architecture and OS.
In other words, a multi-platform GUI existed 20 years ago.
1980-2010: Software engineer
2010-2013: Law school (job was outsourced to India).
2014-2030: Lawyer
2030-present: Software engineer (India is outsourcing to US)
As long as things change, he can keep writing and selling more books!
And if global warming really comes to pass, the grass will grow all that much faster.
Even my in-laws, who are life-long Republicans who campaigned for Goldwater and Nixon, can't stand Bush.
My impression is that the people who like him are mostly the religious nuts who will vote for anyone who claims to be anti-abortion. Pretty scary when you have so many people who think they have god on their side.
What I really mean is that you should work on a project of your own, possibly with a friend, so that you keep your skills up-to-date. Then you can put something on your resume without lying, and you'll have something to talk about at interviews.
You shredded the source code? I would think running a disk drive through a shredder would make quite a mess of both.
True. I read about how Captain Cook, when his ship was badly damaged off Australia, managed to beach the craft so that his crew could rebuild the bottom of the hull.
They are rigged against the poor and middle class, because wage earners have no control over what is considered income: It's their wages.
A rich CEO, on the other hand, can jet around the world, stay in the best hotels, eat in the finest restaurants, and not consider those expenses, paid by the company, as income.
...I'm just happy to see Colorado tax dollars come here.
The reason we don't make a big deal out of the Linux exploits is that most of us have never seen any harm from them. Yet Windows, throughout its life, has been a constant hassle.
Write your own:
#!/bin/bash
echo Scanning...
sleep 3s
echo Scanning...
sleep 3s
echo System clean!
Hmm... Our Portland house has 'passive heating' of a kind, in that we have large, unobstructed south-facing windows. The result is that we don't have to heat much in winter (except for the rare times when it's snowing).
Summer, though, is a problem.
True. But our local utility, PGE, is owned by Enron, and their power-trading over the last few years has caused electricity rates to nearly double.
That's a good point about the "win-usb". But I think it has less chance of succeeding than win-modems. The latter could always be sold cheaper than 'real' modems because they required less hardware. But MS's drm'd usb will require more hardware, so it's likely to be more expensive.
That means the cheapskate (like me) will buy an old-style usb, then scream to anyone who will listen about how my Windows machine won't work with it, and that the only response from MS was to buy a more expensive version.
Doesn't my purchase of "Windows 98 - SE" three years ago qualify me as a "premium customer"? I spent nearly $100 on that!
The general idea is that an 'exempt' employee is doing mostly mental work, so the number of hours worked doesn't need to be kept track of like, say, a policeman. In theory, a software engineer will work extra hours when necessary, but will go home early if he managed to get his work done.
Do the high-tech companies that buy my labor care where I buy my socks?
Must be late in the day; but when I first read "bugmenot", I tried to pronounce it as a French word.